Microsoft and NBC Split Up, MSNBC.com Now NBCnews.com

As of yesterday, July 14th, 2012, Microsoft has agreed to give NBC full control of MSNBC.com. Because of this, NBC is rebranding the site to NBCnews.com. The domain switch has already taken place but MSNBC.com will redirect to NBCnews.com for the time being. For the past 16 years Microsoft owned 50% of MSNBC, however, neither of the companies have disclosed how much the shares were sold for.

As of now, about half of NBC’s staff is located on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington and will have to be moved to New York City where NBC’s headquarters is located. Because of this, NBC has stated that one of the biggest jobs will be to merge their web staff with their NBC News staff in New York. However, some of NBC’s staff will stay in the Seattle area at NBC’s new “NBC News Innovation Center”. This center will cover the technical end of NBC and will work to develop new technologies for the network.

If you’re unaware, Microsoft and NBC formed the MSNBC joint venture in 1996. Microsoft sold their shares of MSNBC TV back in 2005 but decided to stay partial owner of the website until now. When Microsoft and NBC announced the service, MSNBC was a $600 million joint venture.